User site visits

In order to assure the lowest risk in a product or service development, it is essential to understand the needs of the user with it being filtered by perceptions, even by the users themselves. Observing them in their work place gives the most reliable information on what their real work flow is, what their real information needs are, what their real experiences with a product is, etc. User site visits provide the lowest risk but also a moderately high cost, as one famous line goes, “It costs money because it saves money.”

Resources:
- 1-2 User Experience Specialists or Usability Engineers

Estimated time needed:
- 1 week preparation (an additional week is sometimes needed for recruiting the right users, a critical success factor in the process)
- 1-4 weeks for small user samples (5-8 people), 4-8 weeks for larger
- 1 week for report, an extra week if the client wants edited video